Six killed as RSF attack devastates Sudanese hospital in North Kordofan

According to officials and rights advocates, a suspected drone attack by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on a hospital in southern Sudan, the most recent civilian facility targeted during the brutal civil war, claimed at least six people.

The RSF was held responsible for the attack on Friday at the Obeid International Hospital, al-Dhaman, in Obeid, the provincial capital, in North Kordofan province, by the Emergency Lawyers. According to the report, the attack claimed injured at least 15 others.

The hospital claimed that the attack caused significant damage to its main building in a statement posted on social media. The hospital’s main medical facility, which provides the region, was ordered to suspend services until further notice, according to the statement.

A second hospital in the city center was also hit by the bombardment, according to a source from Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) intelligence.

The city serves as a crucial staging point for the army’s supply to the west, where El-Fasher, the only state capital in the vast Darfur region still under the control of the army, is located.

Despite international warnings about the potential for violence in a city that serves as a major humanitarian hub for the five Darfur states, El-Fasher has been the site of attritional fighting between SAF and RSF since May 2024.

outbreak of cholera

The Health Ministry in Khartoum state on Thursday reported 942 new cholera infections and 25 deaths, a rise from 1, 177 cases and 45 deaths the day before, adding to humanitarian woes on the ground.

Aid workers claim that the fight against cholera is slipping because almost 90% of hospitals in key warzones are no longer operational.

In 12 of Sudan’s 18 states, at least 1, 700 deaths have been reported since August 2024, including at least 1,700 deaths. As a result of more than two years of fighting between the army and the RSF, Kartova has seen 7,700 cases and 185 deaths, including more than 1, 000 infections in children under five.

According to Jean-Nicolas Armstrong Dangelser, the Sudanese emergency coordinator known by its French initials MSF, “Sudan urgently needs an increase in aid to help combat the cholera outbreak, hundreds of cases per day, which has even exceeded the more than 1000 cases per day.”

Nobody has the complete picture at the moment, sadly, so Dangelser said, “This is only the tip of the iceberg.”

Fighting in the south of Ondurman’s al-Salha district, where there were pockets of cholera patients, “greatly contributed” to the spread of the disease, according to Dangelser. The al-Salha district, which is thought to be Khartoum State’s final stronghold, was under the control of the army on May 19 when it was announced.

“The returnees to Khartoum are now exacerbating the situation because of the devasted water system and lack of healthcare,” Dangelser continued. “It’s also now spreading to Darfur, where people have been displaced by fighting.”

Sudanese refugees fleeing the conflict outside of their own country, where violence and death are common. Local authorities reported that 11 Sudanese refugees and a Libyan driver were killed in a car crash in Libya’s desert on Friday.

The UN has reported that 250, 000 people have fled their homes since the RSF and SAF clashed in neighboring Libya, out of which 11 million have been forced out of their homes since April 2023.

A coalition of conscience must rise to stop Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza

Anne Frank and her family hid in an underground attic in Amsterdam to escape Nazi persecution during World War II’s darkest days. Her posthumously published diary offered the world a haunting glimpse into the fear and trauma endured by Jewish families at the time.

A tragically well-known tale is raging in Palestine right now. Children like Anne Frank are the subject of this time’s starvation and relentless bombardment by the Israeli government, just like tens of thousands of them. They don’t even have an attic to hide in, the buildings around them have been reduced to rubble by indiscriminate Israeli attacks.

Another genocide is occurring eight decades after the Holocaust, this time involving Palestinian children who have been victims of ethnic cleansing and who have witnessed it. Each of these children has a terrifying tale that the world needs to hear. One day, we may read their accounts in memoirs – if they survive long enough to write them. However, that is not acceptable for the international community. It must now address these children’s suffering. That is why we gave children in Gaza a platform to ask the world a searing question: “Why are you silent”? – through a documentary, which has become one of Turkiye’s most popular efforts to expose the brutality of Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza.

By acting as enslavers or as compliciters of genocide, many Western states have lost their moral authority and hegemonic discourse. Even more tragically, some have sought to justify their positions by invoking a genocide they themselves perpetrated eight decades ago. Those who once committed crimes against humanity while ignoring the nearly total destruction of another people are now doing it. Complicity in new atrocities cannot be absolved from guilt over past atrocities. Conscience cannot be cleansed by choosing fresh shame to cover old disgrace. If “never again” is to have any weight, it must apply to both today and the victims of yesterday.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, publicly denounced the operation as one that constituted genocide just days after Israel launched its military assault on Gaza in October 2023. In the months that followed, Turkiye took concrete steps to oppose the brutal Israeli campaign and halt the unfolding catastrophe in Gaza.

The Turkish government and its citizens have consistently opposed genocide. Erdogan chose to be a leading figure in the development of humanity’s moral conscience rather than to sit back and watch history.

This has been Turkiye’s position for many decades.

Necdet Kent and Selahattin Ulkumen, two diplomats from Turkey who risked their lives to rescue Jews from Nazi deportations, risked their lives during the Holocaust. During the genocide in Bosnia, Turkiye once more urged the international community to act decades later. Over the past 20 years, wherever human suffering emerged – from war zones to disaster areas – Turkiye has acted to shield the vulnerable and uphold the rights of the oppressed in the face of humanitarian crises.

Despite incurring significant political and economic costs, Turkiye bravely responded to Israel’s indiscriminate attacks with strong diplomatic and humanitarian response. It severred trade links with Israel and spearheaded UN efforts to place an international arms and trade embargo. Diplomatic ties have been cut, and Israeli officials are now banned from Turkish airspace, disrupting attempts to normalise genocide. While many governments resisted or issued statements, Turkiye succeeded in helping families who were mourning loved ones who had no graves to bury them in. They were also able to offer aid to children who were forced to drink contaminated water, to mothers who sought refuge among the ruin.

By joining the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Turkiye firmly defended international law and justice, principles that many powerful countries in theory use but never use inconveniently when they are in need. Western governments that once vowed “never again” now tiptoe around genocide, paralysed by fear of offending Israel, even as children die beneath collapsing ceilings. Not just indifference, either. It is a historic-sized betrayal.

A key enabler of Western silence and complicity in the genocide in Gaza has been Israel’s intense disinformation campaign. The Directorate of Communications at Turkiye’s direction has been working to dissipate this noise. The Lies of Israel platform, which challenges false narratives in six languages, has been launched as part of the Directorate’s Disinformation Combat Centre’s initiative. This was only the first step – clearing space for the truth to emerge and building pressure for meaningful change.

In a more dangerous way, Israel increasingly recognizes the necessity to hide misinformation. It makes use of the international community’s ongoing insensitivity to the violence. By referring to Gazans as “children of darkness”, Israeli politicians attempt to legitimise the genocide against them. Both the directorate and the Turkish people have firmly rejected this attempt to normalize inhumanity. Turkeyiye challenges both the deeper demise of global consciousness and the distortions of Israel’s propaganda apparatus. The directorate’s work is an act of resistance – not just against lies, but against a world order where apathy has become the default response to atrocity.

The Directorate of Communications’ sophisticated messaging strategy, which combines traditional and digital media, has brought the world’s attention to Israel’s disproportionate use of force and Palestinian civilian suffering. It strengthens President Erdogan’s ongoing efforts to persuade Western governments and the general public to uphold their own ascribed values.

In coordination with Turkiye’s diplomatic response, the directorate has ensured that social media and other online platforms – where most people now consume news – cannot be turned into accomplices to genocide. By producing a wide range of cultural materials, including books, films, exhibitions, and other public events, it has accomplished this. These gatherings serve as a reminder of the moral obligation that we all have. They are not just meant to be witnesses. A prominent example of Turkiye placing truth in the service of justice was the compilation and dissemination of a book documenting evidence of Israel’s crimes – an effort that has proven instrumental in supporting the case at the International Court of Justice.

The era of outdated paradigms, which prioritize the hegemonic powers’ narrow interests, has come to an end, according to Turkiye. The foundation of a new international order must be the upholding of all people’s rights, especially those who are powerless. To this end, the Directorate of Communications has amplified the voices of Palestinian victims, particularly children, giving them a platform to speak truth in international forums and to express themselves through cultural initiatives such as the Bulletproof Dreams exhibition in Istanbul.

The situation has become a precondition for Western leaders to take hesitant steps away from their protracted silence because of Turkiye’s consistent and early moral leadership in Gaza. Following months of silence, the United Kingdom, France, and Canada have now urged Israel to “stop its military operations in Gaza,” provide humanitarian aid to the area, and commit “concrete actions” in the event that Israel doesn’t. The UK has since suspended trade negotiations with Israel, imposed sanctions on violent settlers in the West Bank, and issued its strongest condemnation yet of Israel’s “morally unjustifiable” actions and “monstrous” public threats to ethnically cleanse Gaza.

This change in tone from Western governments is welcomed, albeit temporary and long overdue. Otherwise, rhetorical change and a fundamental change in policy must be followed by concrete steps and a shift in direction. The time for timid diplomacy has long passed. A coalition of conscience-oriented nations that are courageous enough to align their values with action-oriented leaders who are willing to exchange courage for comfort. Justice must be delivered by those brave enough to do so, not by itself.

Should they fail, they must understand that millions of children – the very ones asking, “Why are you silent”? – will keep holding them accountable. Palestinians are being targeted for crimes every day by Israel’s genocidal government, with more lives lost in Gaza and more homes destroyed in the West Bank. This failure not only deepens Palestinian suffering but also does a grave disservice to the Israeli people, many of whom yearn for a new and just leadership.

Turkiye has clearly defined the course of action. Simply withdrawing support for Israel is no longer sufficient at this point. What is required is a coordinated, conscience-led initiative by allied nations to transform the growing momentum for Palestinian recognition into a genuine two-state reality based on the 1967 borders. This includes creating a political framework that rejects permanent injustice carried out in the name of neutrality. The children’s rescue should be the first step in this endeavor.

Let us act now – so that Palestinian children, like Anne Frank, do not have to die in silence to be remembered. They should live, not be sanctified, but to flourish.

Ex-Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams wins libel case against the BBC

Gerry Adams, the former head of Sinn Fein, has won a libel lawsuit against the BBC over a report that claims he was in charge of the Irish republican movement’s murder.

A jury at Ireland’s High Court on Friday determined that Adams had not acted honestly and fairly, and awarded him 100, 000 euros ($113, 000) in damages.

Denis Donaldson, a long-serving Sinn Fein official who acknowledged in 2005 that he had worked for British intelligence, was claimed in a 2016 documentary and online article that Adams had sanctioned his killing. Four months later, he was shot dead inside his rural Irish cottage.

According to an anonymous claim in the BBC “Spotlight,” Adams gave the Irish Republican Army’s political and military leaders “the final say” about the murder.

Adams denies having any part.

Adams, 76, claimed that the case was “about putting manners on the British Broadcasting Corporation.” Adams’ attorneys claimed that Adams was “very pleased with this unanimous verdict.”

One of the most significant figures in Northern Ireland’s decades of conflict and its peace process is 76. Between 1983 and 2018, he led Sinn Fein, a political organization connected to the IRA. He has always denied being a member of the IRA, but former coworkers have claimed to be one of its leaders.

The BBC claimed that it conducted its program in “good faith,” that it was “fair and reasonable,” and that the public interest was attracted to the claim supported by five other sources.

BBC Northern Ireland director Adam Smyth addressed reporters disappointed with the verdict while speaking with Spotlight reporter Jennifer O’Leary outside Dublin High Court.

We think we gave the court a lot of proof about the thorough editing and reporting care taken in this program and the accompanying online article,” Smyth said.

The court accepted, and Gerry Adams’ legal team conceded, that the Spotlight broadcast and publication served to the highest public interest, in addition.

As Spotlight was available for viewing in Ireland, where about 16, 000 people could watch it, Adams brought the case to Dublin.

More than 100 killed in heavy Nigeria flooding, rescue efforts ongoing

In a nation that is beset by deadly storms every year, at least 111 people have died as a result of heavy flooding that has submerged the market town of Mokwa in north-central Niger State of Nigeria.

Husseini Isah, the head of the operations office in Minna, the Niger State capital, stated on Friday that many people are still at risk as rescue efforts continue.

More bodies have just been brought and aren’t yet being counted, but we have at least 111 confirmed (dead) already, according to Ibrahim Audu Husseini, a spokesman for the Niger State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA).

Thousands of homes were washed away in Mokwa late on Wednesday due to persistent rains that lasted for several hours and left many people missing. The situation quickly deteriorated as a result of a nearby town’s collapse of a dam.

The north of the nation’s trade centers and transit points are important points of contact and communication.

Mohammed Tanko, a civil servant in the town, reported to reporters that he had lost at least 15 people to the town where he was raised.

The property has been lost. Tanko claimed that “we lost everything.”

Danjuma Shaba, 35, a fisherman’s house was destroyed by the floods, forcing him to sleep in a parking lot.

I can’t sleep in a house. Shaba told AFP that his house has already collapsed.

The Nigerian Meteorological Agency has issued a warning about flash floods in 15 of Nigeria’s 36 states, including Niger State, between Wednesday and Friday as the rainy season begins, which typically lasts for six months.

However, scientists have cautioned that extreme weather patterns are already occurring because of climate change.

Nigeria’s annual problem is caused by the excessive rainfall, which destroys infrastructure and makes drainage issues worse.

At least 30 people died and millions of people were displaced in northeast Maiduguri city as a result of severe flooding in September 2024 due to a dam collapse and torrential rains.

The rise of Christian nationalism under Trump

Christian nationalism’s growing influence on US politics is discussed in Marc Lamont Hill’s conversation with professor Anthea Butler.

Under US President Donald Trump, Christian nationalism has gained a significant following.

The movement’s influence on US policy, both domestically and abroad, is growing, leading to growing concern.

What does this mean for American democracy’s future? How does the US response to the Gaza war change as a result of Christian Zionism?